Thanks for the article. Did you notice the author said this about the Myth series?:

Underdeveloped protagonists are a recurring flaw in Bungie's games -- its strategy classics Myth and Myth II, for example, are masterpieces of real-time combat in a vividly realized world, but they're coupled to a generic fantasy story, recounted by an anonymous narrator. This lack of an appealing character never really hurt the popularity of the Myth games...

Yup, that's why the Xbox sucks; because a company hired to make game's for it has made games in the past where the writer doesn't like the characters. That may not be what he's saying explicitly, but that's what he's conveying; a clueless person reading this would say, "Oh, Bungie's games suck because this "responsible journalist" says that have 'underdeveloped characters.' I shouldn't buy an Xbox." I hate irresponsible writers who publish this tripe as if it were well-researched.

Personally, I've always liked the anonymity of the main characters in Bungie games; it leaves a lot of room open for discussion (the Gherrit White terminals, the Dream levels). Master Chief is not a bad character because he's a masked cyborg; that makes him a bad-ass. As for the Narrator of Myth...that's what he was. He's a NARRATOR. I've never seen anyone complain about the lack of character development in "that mysterious voice" in the beginning of a movie.

Besides, I don't hear him complaining about the lack of character development in Luigi's Mansion...

: Thanks for the article. Did you notice the author said
: this about the Myth series?:

Underdeveloped
: protagonists are a recurring flaw in Bungie's games -- its
: strategy classics Myth and Myth II, for example, are
: masterpieces of real-time combat in a vividly realized
: world, but they're coupled to a generic fantasy story,
: recounted by an anonymous narrator. This lack of an
: appealing character never really hurt the popularity of the
: Myth games...

Now when I say dumbass, I'm referring to Wagner James Au, author of the article, not necessarily to madmaxter here.

I own an Xbox. I own Xbox games. I have owned Nintendo products. I have owned Sony products (console-wise.) I've kept up with the news and technology and game comparisons, and to be perfectly frank, Au is biased (as he indirectly admits in his article) and flat-out wrong in several of his facts. This article is a multipage tirade against Microsoft, which seems to shy away from gaming in general to other issues more than it deals with why Au feels the way he does. He criticizes Microsoft's lack of innovation (making more references to IE and other Microsoft products than particular games, I might add,) praising Sony instead in that respect. Now doesn't that seem like an odd comparison---a one-day-old system and a two-year-old? Futhermore, he claims that a Gamecube has the same technical power as an Xbox, only for less money....Well, I'm precisely sure what all the technical stats that have been published mean, but I'm pretty sure Xbox and Gamecube are different, at least. Anyhow, that's my rant---this article just really got on my nerves.

: Now when I say dumbass, I'm referring to Wagner James Au,
: author of the article, not necessarily to madmaxter here.
:
: I own an Xbox. I own Xbox games. I have owned Nintendo
: products. I have owned Sony products (console-wise.) I've
: kept up with the news and technology and game comparisons,
: and to be perfectly frank, Au is biased (as he indirectly
: admits in his article) and flat-out wrong in several of his
: facts. This article is a multipage tirade against Microsoft,
: which seems to shy away from gaming in general to other
: issues more than it deals with why Au feels the way he does.
: He criticizes Microsoft's lack of innovation (making more
: references to IE and other Microsoft products than
: particular games, I might add,) praising Sony instead in
: that respect. Now doesn't that seem like an odd
: comparison---a one-day-old system and a two-year-old?
: Futhermore, he claims that a Gamecube has the same technical
: power as an Xbox, only for less money....Well, I'm precisely
: sure what all the technical stats that have been published
: mean, but I'm pretty sure Xbox and Gamecube are different,
: at least. Anyhow, that's my rant---this article just really
: got on my nerves.
:
: ~Halo is as good as I thought it'd be :-)~

I should have known what I was getting into when I saw the link was from Salon.com. If there is a site that rants on topics they know nothing about more that Salon, I've yet to see it. Those guys are loud and clueless...never a good combination.

It boils down to "I hate MS...so XBox sucks." If you're going to review a product, then review the product, don't spend most of your article bitching about Steve Balmer.

Well beside the fact that Salon.com couldn't write a factual story about gravity, it does have some decent points, unfortunately they also have some really badly researched parts, and some really lame "facts" that they have come up with. I'd write a response to the long and boring diatribe, but I'd rather have my teeth pulled than read that again (c=.

Grrr when will people learn, when you're trying to say everthing in a game has been done before, once you list about 4 differant games you argument goes down the crapper. It's like saying, "Half-Life isn't really that great, zork had a strong plot, wolfenstein was a first person shooter, pong was multiplayer, and ray guns were in commander keen!"
And they said that Halo has strong narrative like... half-life??? When exactly was half-life narrated? The whole coolness of Half-Life was that it had a strong plot WITHOUT a lots of narration... grrr, i should stop reading this thing, i feel my iq lowering...

: And they said that Halo has strong narrative like...
: half-life??? When exactly was half-life narrated? The whole
: coolness of Half-Life was that it had a strong plot WITHOUT
: a lots of narration... grrr, i should stop reading this
: thing, i feel my iq lowering...

"Narrative" means "story" or "plot". So if someone says that Halo has a "strong narrative" or a "strong narrative sense" they mean it has a good story.

It doesn't mean "narration" in the sense of voiceover or subtitling. (Although Halo and Myth could be said to have narration if you consider Cortana a narrator).

Xbox showed up today at wife's office as expected. I got home about a half hour ago and my 14 year old son and her are playing Oddworld. I must say that it's visually amazing to say the least and they're enjoying it already. In a bit after some consumption of pizza i'll wrench control away and pop in Halo and start having at it.

Thusfar even the skeptical wife has stated "this is REALLY nice, I can't wait to see what they do with this in the future".

That's a great impression for any of you out there that also have to justify money like this out of a family budget. I'm pleased thusfar. More to come after some Halo play.

Well, after playing Halo from 8 - 2am I have to say i'm very impressed. I've only encountered a couple slight hikkups during gameplay while moving from one area to another but those always are space in areas where theres no fighting and such. Logically loading of further data for the upcoming events.

Getting used to the controller... don't have to think about it much now. The Warthog was tougher to control than I expected, but as with the controller it's grown on me and is VERY manuverable once you get the hang of it.

I'm not going to say anything about the scenario specifically. I really like the story and it has me drawn in. Personally I don't mind the voice being there in your head speaking to you. Doesn't bother me.

Being a visual guy I have to say WoW. Theres multiple things on every single level where I find it hard to concentrate on playing because of how beautiful or well implemented what i'm encountering is. Every once in a while you come around a corner or such and encounter another unit closeup and they just look incredible, breathtaking.... hard to describe the experience.

Anyhow. After 6 hours of play myself and my son and wife playing other games for about 3 hours I do not regret the purchase at all. At least by my meager expectations the hardware seems very good and the first set of games very entertaining.

Not sure if that's helpful or not, but someone asked for Impressions, so this is an impression.

So I decided I'd try to get two XBoxes and not one with no help from my *ahem* friends.

XBox #1
I picked out a 24-hour WalMartI started diving to WalMart at 4:45 PM. Surprisingly, the freeway wasn't too packed, but I decided to call the store while in traffic anyway...nobody in line yet, and the person on the other end said nobody who's in line before 11 PM is getting served...Ludicrous. of course he was wrong. He was in Electronics and said the line would be in Lay Away. Lay Away said the line would be in Electronics. An assistant manager said Customer Service. The PS2 line that year was in Lay Away, so that's where I lingered. A guy who arrived after me lined up in Customer Service. Eventually, I joined up with him and we grabbed a real manager and forced him to start an official line. Imagine the situation come 11 PM if there had been no line, and 100 people loitering around all saying they were first in line. They moved us outside. My official position was #2. I bought a 5 dollar camping chair, along with 2 other guys and we played cards for a while. I listened to my iPod. We talked about XBox and GameCube. 6 hours passed by rather quickly.

The only hairy moment was around 10:30 when some snoop-doggs and gangsta types showed up to step to us. One tried to bribe us into letting him cut in line with an offer of $15...ONE FIVE. Then he got threatening and said stuff like, "Hey aight, I got a xbox dev kit in my car. I'll show it to y'all aight? It's silver. I'd use it but I got no games for it...blah blah blah." Eventually there were over a dozen people like him loitering.

At midnight, the line started moving, I got one of 44 XBoxes. Lots of people went home empty handed.

XBox #2
Target had 6 people in line by 4:30 and too many in line by 6 AM. A lot more couples and mothers in line at Target vs WalMart. They were also two entirely different cities. Two of the kids were talking about going to Hillsborough to sell theirs. "I'm from Hillsborough." They shut up.

How's the iPod? You're the first person I've seen who actually seems to have one! I'm considering getting one. thoughts?

cori

tobin wrote on Friday, 11/16/2001 - 1:15 am:

: So I decided I'd try to get two XBoxes and not one with no
: help from my *ahem* friends.
:
: XBox #1
: I picked out a 24-hour WalMartI started diving to WalMart
: at 4:45 PM. Surprisingly, the freeway wasn't too packed, but
: I decided to call the store while in traffic anyway...nobody
: in line yet, and the person on the other end said nobody
: who's in line before 11 PM is getting served...Ludicrous. of
: course he was wrong. He was in Electronics and said the line
: would be in Lay Away. Lay Away said the line would be in
: Electronics. An assistant manager said Customer Service. The
: PS2 line that year was in Lay Away, so that's where I
: lingered. A guy who arrived after me lined up in Customer
: Service. Eventually, I joined up with him and we grabbed a
: real manager and forced him to start an official line.
: Imagine the situation come 11 PM if there had been no line,
: and 100 people loitering around all saying they were first
: in line. They moved us outside. My official position was #2.
: I bought a 5 dollar camping chair, along with 2 other guys
: and we played cards for a while. I listened to my iPod. We
: talked about XBox and GameCube. 6 hours passed by rather
: quickly.
:
: The only hairy moment was around 10:30 when some
: snoop-doggs and gangsta types showed up to step to us. One
: tried to bribe us into letting him cut in line with an offer
: of $15...ONE FIVE. Then he got threatening and said stuff
: like, "Hey aight, I got a xbox dev kit in my car. I'll show
: it to y'all aight? It's silver. I'd use it but I got no
: games for it...blah blah blah." Eventually there were over a
: dozen people like him loitering.
:
: At midnight, the line started moving, I got one of 44
: XBoxes. Lots of people went home empty handed.
:
: XBox #2
: Target had 6 people in line by 4:30 and too many in line
: by 6 AM. A lot more couples and mothers in line at Target vs
: WalMart. They were also two entirely different cities. Two
: of the kids were talking about going to Hillsborough to sell
: theirs. "I'm from Hillsborough." They shut up.

I got my second XBox yesterday (mostly because I'm tired of playing
co-op in splitscreen, it's a far less-than-acceptable solution). I picked
it up at FAO Schwartz after waiting in line for approximately 20 minutes
behind some guy who had nary a clue about what he was buying. ("So
this doesn't play Playstation games?...")

I have noticed that the ambient temperature in my apartmaent has gone
up by about 12 degrees since yesterday...wonder if there's any correlation.

: I got my second XBox yesterday (mostly because I'm tired
: of playing
: co-op in splitscreen, it's a far less-than-acceptable
: solution). I picked
: it up at FAO Schwartz after waiting in line for
: approximately 20 minutes
: behind some guy who had nary a clue about what he was
: buying. ("So
: this doesn't play Playstation games?...")

You can't play Co-op on two screens, can you? I think you can only play it splitcreen on one X-Box. Post if you get it to work, please!

: : I got my second XBox yesterday (mostly because I'm
: tired
: : of playing
: : co-op in splitscreen, it's a far less-than-acceptable
: : solution). I picked
: : it up at FAO Schwartz after waiting in line for
: : approximately 20 minutes
: : behind some guy who had nary a clue about what he was
: : buying. ("So
: : this doesn't play Playstation games?...")
:
: You can't play Co-op on two screens, can you? I think you
: can only play it splitcreen on one X-Box. Post if you get
: it to work, please!

It no worky. Me pissed. Gonna crack the case and try to
hack the free box. More later.

Gripe in the recent article in www.salon.com about the X-box, that Bungie has not created notable central characters.

And the central characters of PID, Marathon, and Halo would certainly seem to lack personality, though they are not very different from such characters of most other first-person shooters, notably id's. The biggest personality of any FPS character to date is that of Duke Nukem, and he's a rarity; perhaps Lo Wang of Shadow Warrior comes close. But a slight modification of the FPS is the chase-cam game, and that has had some notable personalities.

However, that does not seem to bother many players; they simply project themselves onto their game character. And the creators of the Marathon series had done a masterful job of turning the player character's identity into one of the game's puzzles.

Well, there are examples of first-person shooter characters: Gordon (forgot his last name) from Half-life, Ensign Munro (Elite Force), J.C. Denton (Deus Ex)...however, these are all more recent games.

I do agree that finding out about the character is half the fun of Marathon...it defines half of the story right there. And you have to work to find it out...which is also fun. I hope someone has sent a link to the Story page to that writer...let him learn the error of his ways ;).

Personally, I've always thought that Marathon has some of the greatest video game characters ever...Durandal, Tycho, Tfear, Thoth...Gherrit White ;).

Theocracity

Loren Petrich wrote on Friday, 11/16/2001 - 8:19 pm:

: Gripe in the recent article in www.salon.com about the
: X-box, that Bungie has not created notable central
: characters.
:
: And the central characters of PID, Marathon, and Halo
: would certainly seem to lack personality, though they are
: not very different from such characters of most other
: first-person shooters, notably id's. The biggest personality
: of any FPS character to date is that of Duke Nukem, and he's
: a rarity; perhaps Lo Wang of Shadow Warrior comes close. But
: a slight modification of the FPS is the chase-cam game, and
: that has had some notable personalities.
:
: However, that does not seem to bother many players; they
: simply project themselves onto their game character. And the
: creators of the Marathon series had done a masterful job of
: turning the player character's identity into one of the
: game's puzzles.
:
: [PID = Pathways into Darkness]
:
:

: Well, there are examples of first-person shooter
: characters: Gordon (forgot his last name) from Half-life,
: Ensign Munro (Elite Force), J.C. Denton (Deus Ex)...however,
: these are all more recent games.
:
: I do agree that finding out about the character is half
: the fun of Marathon...it defines half of the story right
: there. And you have to work to find it out...which is also
: fun. I hope someone has sent a link to the Story page to
: that writer...let him learn the error of his ways ;).

Letting dipweed reviewers learn "The Error of Their Ways" is becoming a full-time job. I mean, I've already delivered two or three rebukes in as many days—we're going to have to start an Idiot Control Army.

: Letting dipweed reviewers learn "The Error of Their Ways"
: is becoming a full-time job. I mean, I've already delivered
: two or three rebukes in as many days—we're going to have to
: start an Idiot Control Army.

Oh, I agree that there are plenty of dipweed reviewers out there who need to be taught the error of their ways.

µDog Hotline has recently changed addresses, the ":42000" suffix has been dropped, so now all you need to type in the IP field is hl.udogs.net or doobie.dyndns.org

We've also undergone some renovations. There are now many many more files for Myth TFL, and entirely new sections for Myth 2, Myth 3, and many other games.

No login or password are required, if you don't have hotline, I recommend you try it out. It's a peer to peer file transfer program like FTP, but it also has news and chat features. Go to www.hotlinesw.com to download yourself a hotline client.

If you already have a hotline client, you can use the link below to connect automatically.

I'm in a bit of a fix, here. Can somebody give me a hand? I need a server where I can host a few files—images (screenshots)—for about a week. It's not much, comes out to about 3.6 megs all together. Should be easy as pie, but I have absolutely nothing I can host this with, a homepage, anything. Well, I suppose I could upload it to The Junkyard, but I think they'd frown on that :)

It's not p0rn or warez or anything, it's just something for an auction I'm holding at Ebay. Technical difficulties prevent me from a simpler method.

: Earendil wrote on Monday, 11/19/2001 - 6:21 pm:
:
: :
: : they're going for $400-$600 on ebay, and as much as
: $800
: : on half.com
: :
:
: Not necessarily. I got mine for $360 (including shipping)
: off ebay. And I got Halo off ebay for $45 shipped.
:
: If you look carefully, you can find special bundles with
: XBox and Halo only, and that may save you a few bucks on
: shipping. Good luck.

aye, I got mine of ebay, $365 and that includes shipping (took me 5 hous of watching ebay to get that). I feel lucky, they are still going for 400+

Halo and another controller I picked up from Game Crazy, in a local mall. first time I've set foot in a mall the day after thanksgiving, and I am proud to say I was in and out in under 10 minutes :-)

(Already posted this at HBO, but thought I owed it to Rampancy.net, got a very fine site here.)
Well...last saturday I was able to play Halo for a rather lengthy period (24 hours or so) and I actually beat the game, well, not completly, haven't completed hard and legendary yet...but hey, I still beat it. I'm not going to give anything away, but the storyline is pretty darn inventive. Takes some interesting turns, but always keeps you fighting, so not too much time to really think about the story, your most likely going to be thinking about that energy sword that's floating around by itself, wondering how much longer you can avoid it since your down to seventeen rounds in your AR, and no more sniper rounds left...but hey, a rocket launcher does wonders for clearing your mind. The game is, of course, the best I've ever played, and anyone who says different...well, that's your opinion, not mine. It's really funny walking around in school and seeing your best friend get tapped on the shoulder, look back, and not seeing anyone go crazy thinking he's about to die from his friend carrying active camo who just stuck a plasma grenade on his back. And then your other friend who whenever you move, they flinch, and they don't let you out of their sight since the day before they died four times in one minute from you bashing them in the back of the head with your AR. Good times...
P.S. To anyone who wants a good multiplayer game, make sure you turn invisible players on, it's possibly the best thing in multiplayer. Although so far it also seems to cause mental problems....

: (Already posted this at HBO, but thought I owed it to
: Rampancy.net, got a very fine site here.)
: Well...last saturday I was able to play Halo for a rather
: lengthy period (24 hours or so) and I actually beat the
: game, well, not completly, haven't completed hard and
: legendary yet...but hey, I still beat it. I'm not going to
: give anything away, but the storyline is pretty darn
: inventive. Takes some interesting turns, but always keeps
: you fighting, so not too much time to really think about the
: story, your most likely going to be thinking about that
: energy sword that's floating around by itself, wondering how
: much longer you can avoid it since your down to seventeen
: rounds in your AR, and no more sniper rounds left...but hey,
: a rocket launcher does wonders for clearing your mind. The
: game is, of course, the best I've ever played, and anyone
: who says different...well, that's your opinion, not mine.
: It's really funny walking around in school and seeing your
: best friend get tapped on the shoulder, look back, and not
: seeing anyone go crazy thinking he's about to die from his
: friend carrying active camo who just stuck a plasma grenade
: on his back. And then your other friend who whenever you
: move, they flinch, and they don't let you out of their sight
: since the day before they died four times in one minute from
: you bashing them in the back of the head with your AR. Good
: times...
: P.S. To anyone who wants a good multiplayer game, make
: sure you turn invisible players on, it's possibly the best
: thing in multiplayer. Although so far it also seems to cause
: mental problems....